Many biomedical applications using advanced drugs and therapeutic techniques still require that the drug be delivered or the therapy be applied to a precise location within the subject. Thus, proper therapeutic targeting remains an important aspect of many therapeutic procedures regardless of treatment modality.
Exemplary areas of biomedicine where precise targeting is advantageous include neurological medicine and neurosurgery. For example, treatment of central nervous system disorders can be challenging due to the protected compartmentalization of the brain and spinal cord by the blood-brain barrier. In many circumstances, microinjections into the brain parenchyma are important procedures to deliver drugs, viral vectors or cell transplants. Many brain diseases remain under treated because of a lack of sufficiently precise and easy to use brain targeting systems that can efficiently assist a healthcare provider in delivering a therapeutic agent locally to the disease site in the brain while minimizing residual damage to surrounding brain structures. Besides agent delivery, neuroablation within the brain and intracranial surgery facilitates the treatment of debilitating neurological disorders characterized by malfunctioning neurons such as epilepsy and malignant tissue such as brain tumors. Like precise agent delivery, these techniques require a high level of accuracy to be effective.
The benefit of precise targeting of therapeutic interventions is not limited to neurological disorders and may include essentially any treatment paradigm where the location of the affected tissues or the origin of disease producing cells is known.